


Past/Present

by blueberryfallout



Series: Pearl Parker [2]
Category: Deadpool (Comics), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Lowkey Angst, No Transphobia, Some Gore and Mental Angst Because Wade Wilson, Trans Female Character, Trans Peter Parker, Wade Wilson Is Mentally Ill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:10:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8835184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberryfallout/pseuds/blueberryfallout
Summary: hey guys! same rules as last time apply to this fic: if you think i said something transphobic, lemme know. although there was barely any mention of pearl being trans in this fic, so i'm figuring nothing is there lolANYWAY.so i was reading through my comments as i so often do, because i'm vain as hell and thrive off my readers, and i realized there was one commenter who really stuck out in the volume of their comments and how nice they are, so i figured i'd gift them a fic. i guess because i feel like my replies never show exactly how much appreciation i have for you guys, and especially you, Knightfrog1248. so i really hope that a. you're still on ao3 and b. you like this. enjoy!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Knightfrog1248](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knightfrog1248/gifts).



> hey guys! same rules as last time apply to this fic: if you think i said something transphobic, lemme know. although there was barely any mention of pearl being trans in this fic, so i'm figuring nothing is there lol
> 
> ANYWAY.  
> so i was reading through my comments as i so often do, because i'm vain as hell and thrive off my readers, and i realized there was one commenter who really stuck out in the volume of their comments and how nice they are, so i figured i'd gift them a fic. i guess because i feel like my replies never show exactly how much appreciation i have for you guys, and especially you, Knightfrog1248. so i really hope that a. you're still on ao3 and b. you like this. enjoy!

**TIMES SQUARE, NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 17TH, 2014**

Pearl winces to herself, clutching at a wound in her side that’s deep enough not to heal right away. Her mask is ripped at the temple, blood trickling from her forehead and into her eyes. 

Vulture laughs, striking out with razor-sharp talons, even the graze of them against her skin cutting deep. Webbing to a nearby skyscraper and flipping over his head, she manages to force him to the ground, struggling the whole way, his hands and wings scrabbling, snapping his teeth close to her face. “Pest! Insect! Let go of me before I rip you to pieces,” he shrieks, his eyes mad and wheeling, focusing anywhere but on her as he pushes at her shoulders.

She can feel as his talons dig into her inner thigh, sinking in, dangerously close to her femoral. “Maybe…if…you’d stop…hurting people…” she pants, spidey sense going haywire but she can’t avoid this danger without letting Vulture go, can’t stop him when he’s this close.

She’s only been fully transitioned for two months and already she’s going to have new scars? This sucks. At least, in her smaller body, there’s less for Vulture to grab on to. He hadn’t even seemed to notice the change, which was…nice, she guesses, if he hadn’t been divebombing shopper’s heads, scraping along their scalps and taking the bags they dropped. 

“I’ll do whatever I want! I am the Vulture, I rule the skies!” he yells directly into her face, spittle coating the front of her mask. Yuck.

“Brush your teeth, birdbrain.” He screams in outrage, digging his sharp nails into her back, dragging to the side and along her ribs, her costume ripping easily to shreds. Great. That’s the third time this month she’s had to sew it back together from scraps. And now it feels like her back is on fire, Pearl arching away from him even as she forces him closer to the ground, until finally, _finally_ their feet touch the ground and she can wrestle him to his knees, webbing his wings tight to his sides.  
God, this would be so much easier with a partner, someone to hold Vulture’s wings back as she takes on the talons. “Guess you’ve been grounded,” she tells him, and he snarls at her, leaning too far forward and falling on his face. Pearl helps him up, because she’s not mean, not like that, and waves the cops over. 

They hurry him away without speaking to her, even as blood trails from her fingers and puddles to the ground. _Everything_ hurts. She webs herself up and away, to the rooftop of a building where no one ever seems to go, only her and the pigeons. If she shows up like this, wounds unhealed and covered in blood, even with her uniform off, Aunt May will _freak_. She’s gonna have to stay til they heal, she thinks, pulling out her phone. 

“Pearl?” comes Aunt May’s voice, a little distracted.

“Hey, Aunt May. I’m just calling to let you know that I’m staying at a friend’s for the night.” Shouldn’t take longer than that for everything to heal. 

“Which friend?” Aunt May asks, suspicious. She’s starting to figure it out, Pearl thinks. Hopes, sometimes, when she’s at her most alone. It would be nice to share the burden with someone.

“Gwen,” Pearl lies, knowing that Gwen will cover for her if Aunt May investigates further.

“Well…alright, Pearl. But remember, you have school tomorrow.” 

Yeah, and none of her homework is done. Pearl leans her back against the wall, wincing at the scrape of brick against her already cut skin, and slides to the ground, putting her head on her knees. “Yeah. Uh, yeah, I know. Don’t worry, Aunt May.” 

“I always worry,” May says, gentle, before finishing with, “I love you, Pearl. See you tomorrow.”

“Love you too.” There’s a click as she hangs up, and Pearl lets her phone drop into her lap, settling in for the long, lonely wait.

**TIMES SQUARE, NEW YORK CITY, DECEMBER 12TH, 2016**

“Spidey! Heads up!” Pearl jumps, spins, catches Vulture straight in the chest with both feet, forcing all the air from him. He claws at her anyway, only just missing her eyes, but gets pulled back by Wade, who aims a gun at him.

“Stop struggling. There’s a whole bunch of stuff I can do to you before babygirl here gets all righteous on my cute little ass,” Wade tells him, pulling one katana from its sheath. “And right now, the boxes are getting _real_ excited.” 

“Deadpool,” she says, stern, easily holding him back with one hand as she uses the other to web Vulture up tight.

He’s spitting the usual curses, “I’ll get you for this! My time will come again!” so she webs his mouth shut, too. 

“Looks like your goose is cooked,” she says, getting an even angrier glare from Vulture as the police come to take him away. 

“Thanks, Spidergirl,” one of them says, grinning at her. “You were a huge help today.” 

Pearl can feel herself flush with pleasure, grateful for the mask. “Uh. You’re welcome!” she calls after them, then turns as Wade snags an arm around her waist, nuzzling his nose into the space on her costume where it ripped. Not much damage this time, just scrapes that are half healed already; her healing factor isn’t nearly as good as Wade’s, but she does okay. 

“I’m jumped up like a serial killer on Halloween,” he mutters, spinning her, pressing kisses to the front of her mask as she screws up her nose and laughs. “Let’s get something to eat.” They head for the closest taco stand, because Wade is very, very predictable in some things, and eat them on top of the Chrysler building, legs dangling. “If I threw myself off here, what d’you think would happen?” Wade asks. 

“I think you’d be a wet smear on the pavement,” she responds, long since used to Wade’s suicidal ticks. “But I’d catch you first.” His mask is peeled up and over his nose, so he can throw her a smile that consists of smeared salsa and teeth that have had to regrow themselves too many times.

Feeling a sudden, overwhelming wave of fondness, she scoots closer to him, taking his hand. His mouth quirks up. “Feeling sentimental, pretty girl?” 

Instead of answering she kisses his cheek, feeling the bumps of his scars under her lips. “Gwen and Aunt May are coming to dinner tonight,” she tells him. “And I have a lunch date with Mary Jane tomorrow. So I’m gonna be busy for a while.” 

“You’re popular,” he observes. 

She shrugs one shoulder, biting deep into her own taco, looking over her city. Tony’s tower sparkles in the distance, over rows of buildings she knows like the back of her hand, over thousands of people whose lives she’s saved. “Yeah,” she says, leaning further into Wade. “I guess I am.”


	2. Stumbling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dunno what this, probably the last installment tho

Wade _loves_ his baby girl, would die for her. _Has_ died for her, took a bullet once or twice and never told. Pretended he was unconscious as the blackness swelled and left. 

She’s clever and bendy and _his_ , which is the most important part. Or, almost as important as him being hers, body and soul. “Wade!” she calls from the kitchen, where she’s been studying for hours, bent over a textbook, his Spidey who’s smarter than everyone. 

“Yeah?” he yells back, intent on his latest project; a gun-sword, half gun, at least one third sword, entirely awesome. If it works, anyway. 

“Which branch was part of the Army until 1946?” “Air Force!” he answers immediately, the information right there like so few other things are, the boxes going _How the everloving FUCK do you know that?_   
**Maybe we served in the Army** , blue argues, slipsliding its way into his brain, invasive, subtle in a way yellow never is, filling his vision with shades of navy til his fingers wobble and all he can see is Army Army Army. 

“That would explain the dogtags!” he quips, trying to be sly about shoving blue out so his brain is equal again, lovely shades of green. Blue makes him too serious, blue brings all the bad things back. 

Glancing down at his hands, he could swear on his mom’s _life_ , useless asshole she was, that they weren’t covered in blood a moment before, glistening, slippery, dripping onto Pearl’s pristine carpet. He’s good at killing, mama always said, mama always said a lot of things to little Wade, crying, cowering little Wade. Maybe he killed her, maybe he killed mama and she _got what she deserved_.

There’s yellow, slotting back into place like it was never gone, filling his vision with mellow green again. Blood’s gone, mama’s gone, it’s sunshine and roses again if only his hands would stop shaking. _Cut them off_ , yellow murmurs, and he’s reaching for the knife when Pearl walks in, immediately webbing it away over the ugly sound of blue complaining. 

“Wade.” She’s right there, the best thing, sinking to her knees over the scattered pieces of his gun-sword, shaking his shoulders. “Wade, come back to me.” Her voice is firm as he hunches like he’s been punched, strings cut, fitting his face into the curve of her neck where it’s always safe. 

“Sorry, Pearl. Sorry, babygirl. They got loud again I’m _sorry_.” 

Pearl hushes him, wraps arms that are strong enough to hold him back around his waist, she smells like chemicals and bread and him. “It’s fine, baby. It happens.” 

“Shouldn’t,” he mumbles, feeling her stroke the back of his head where the scars are the thickest. 

“Happens anyway,” she tells him, firm, not letting him wiggle his way out of anything. So he stays there, breathing deep into her skin, and relaxes.  
+++  
Wade walks in and lays his severed arm on his kitchen table before draping himself across her lap, blood dripping all over, down her thigh and onto the couch. She’d be annoyed, but she recognizes pain in the tightened planes of his face and how he turns his head into her stomach. He likes to pretend that he doesn’t feel pain anymore, and she usually lets him.

Today, she scratches gently at the scars on his scalp, asking, “How bad?” 

“Oh, you know me, babygirl. I’m just up and bouncin’ around all ready to murder right away, I’m a like Captain Kirk except instead of Spock I love killing.” 

She snorts a laugh in spite of herself, watches as his arm regrows, the bone covered by muscles that flex and twitch. He bites at her stomach, light, but his eyes are hurting. “Wade.”

For a long moment he doesn’t speak, until, “It hurts. A lot.” The skin is growing on his arm now, starting from the source of the wound and creeping towards his hand, scarring up almost immediately.

“Okay. Then tonight, I’ll stay in. We can watch movies or, if you really want, I can dress up like Cable and dance for you.”

That earns a giggle from him and he rolls onto his back as his arm fully heals, wiggling his fingers. “Oh, babygirl, you really know how to please a man.”

She entwines her fingers with his, careful, knowing the skin is sensitive after regrowing. “So, tell me how you managed to lose an arm this time.” They seem to have a slowly growing collection of his body parts, arms left in the dumpster behind their apartment, teeth clattering around in a spare vase, an eyeball that he forgot in the fridge once that put her off boiled eggs forever. 

“Well,” he starts, drawing it out, muscles slowly relaxing as all memories of pain fade. “I was walking down the street, just minding my own fucking business, right, the boxes all chat-chat-chattering away, yellow screaming at blue,” he mimes fighting, bashing his fists together, getting distracted until she folds her hand over his.

“Wade.” 

“Mm. Yeah. Right. So, like the sneaky little fuckers they are, there are some ninjas! Out of nowhere! And they’re going blah blah blah about some Chosen One I hacked apart, and now I’ve gotta die, and I _tried_ explaining, Spidey, that it’s just not possible, I’m all Grim Reaper’d out.”

“Uh huh.” She’s stopped counting the amount of people who want to get revenge on Wade, she just fights them off herself and hopes for the best. He’s not a good guy, at least not all the time, but he’s _her_ guy and he never kills innocent people, not anymore. She loves him, ninja cults and all. 

“So obviously I had to get a cutting. And I promise, baby, I _promise_ no decapitations even though you know they’re my favorite flavor. I was doing great but then one of them got a lucky shot in. Lucky I tell you! And wham bam no thank you ma’am, I’m armless.” He waggles his newly regrown arm about, boneless; he’s grinning at her, that wide-toothed mocking smile that annoys everyone else but her. “Don’t worry, though. I’m trained in dual-katana technique.” 

She hunches to kiss his forehead, feeling the bumps of his scars against her lips. “Am I going to be hearing about dead ninjas from Jonah tomorrow?” 

Brow furrowing, he sits up a little, getting to his elbows. “ _No_. I told you, maiming not murder. Where are your ears, Spidey?” He takes one lobe between thumb and forefinger, tugging gently. “Did they fall off?”

Distracted, she giggles, pulling on the shell of his. “Yes, so I have to take yours now.”

“Ah, woe is me,” he whines, overdramatic, flopping to the ground. She smiles and falls with him.

**Author's Note:**

> oh and this is based off a prompt from tumblr reading past/present :)


End file.
